This Is Us
I Made a Blueprint for Breathing
Because our world is always on fire somewhere
They said firefighters were coming on Friday. I spent the week in mirrors preparing the perfect smile for my fire truck photo. Head tilt to the left. Neck up just a bit. Grin. Open your eyes. Don’t say cheese — it’s a trap.
Friday came but the trucks didn’t. Instead, a short, bald man walked into our classroom and announced himself as the fire marshal. He, awkward and grossly underwhelming, lectured our class about making emergency plans and running fire drills with our families. I mostly ignored him and picked carpet lint until he passed out the coloring books — a consolation prize for leaving the truck at the station. The back page was a tear-off sheet for our family emergency plan. I colored the booklet all afternoon. That night, I showed my parents the book and asked about our plan. My dad laughed. My mama said we didn’t need to plan. That we would know what to do.
The empty planning sheet stayed on the fridge until someone moved it to the trash bin. I spent the next ten years of my childhood afraid to fall asleep, praying that fires would never come to our duplex on Holmes Run Parkway.
I made my first emergency plan in ninth grade. My counselor, a drabby girl with platform shoes, said I…
